By Kim Plummer Krull April brought more than showers in a month filled with weather-related death and destruction that affected congregations throughout the Synod, including a record number of twisters that damaged or destroyed LCMS member homes and interrupted services…

Dr. Philip Kuehnert has been appointed chief executive officer of Open Arms Institute (OAI), the Loveland, Colo.-based organization that works to plant congregations and help existing ministries expand their Gospel outreach through child care centers.  In his new post, Kuehnert…

Lutheran Church Extension Fund (LCEF) will host its third school branding webinar at 4:30 p.m. (CT) on May 5.  The webinar series is part of LCEF’s Project School Zone program that supports Lutheran school marketing and publicity. Titled “Get on…

If you could use some help in learning how to use Facebook, Twitter, websites and more, you might be interested in “Digital Gospel: Speaking the Truth in a Post-Christian World,” a conference about technology, the church and communicating the Gospel…

Church organists are used to practicing at a keyboard, but a new resource is designed to help organists from a computer keyboard instead of the organ console.  A new resource from The Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod will provide several short “how…

By Kim Plummer Krull Members of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church and School in Cullman, Ala., are among the masses dealing with major damages after powerful storms cut a wide swath through the South on April 27, killing more than 250…

Artist and retired university Professor Reinhold Marxhausen, known for his unusual “sound sculptures” and his two mosaic murals that are on display in the Nebraska Capitol, died April 23 in Seward, Neb.  Prof. Marxhausen, 89, had suffered from Alzheimer’s disease.…

(RNS) — The State Department has a “rigidly narrow” view of diplomacy that neglects religion’s role in foreign affairs, a prominent Catholic ambassador charged on April 17 as he announced his resignation. Other foreign policy experts have another name for…

WASHINGTON (RNS) — A New York minister will soon fill the Obama administration’s long-vacant position to oversee international religious freedom after the Senate voted to confirm Rev. Suzan Johnson Cook for the post. The voice vote on April 14 positions…

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (RNS) — As a white man surrendered to federal marshals April 15, workers were rebuilding the pulpit of the Macedonia Church of God in Christ he was convicted of burning down the night of President Obama’s election. Michael…

WASHINGTON (RNS) — The law calling for an annual National Day of Prayer imposes solely on the duties of the U.S. president, leaving private citizens no legal standing to challenge it, a federal appeals court ruled April 14. The unanimous…

LONDON (RNS) — Researchers at two of Britain’s top universities claim that church attendance in many Western nations is falling because people are living longer and therefore have less fear of death. The result, the studies say, is a “graying…

(RNS) — Are Christianity and capitalism a marriage made in heaven, as some conservatives believe, or more of a strained relationship in need of some serious couples counseling? A new poll released April 21 found that more Americans (44 percent)…

The Kantorei of Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Ind., will visit cities in Indiana, Tennessee and Ohio on its Easter Choral Vespers Tour April 27-May 1. The 16-member choir, composed of men studying to become pastors, was founded in 1978…

Both seminaries of The Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod will provide live coverage of their call day and assignment services on their websites.  Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Ind., will provide video and audio streaming of its vicarage placement and deaconess internship…

Registration is now open for the 31st annual Concordia Deaconess Conference to be held June 15-18 at Concordia University Nebraska, Seward, Neb. Under the theme of “Lutheran Spirituality: The Life of Receptivity,” the conference is open to all LCMS-rostered deaconesses…